


Pressed Flowers and Storm Clouds

by Neurtsy



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 10:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3975271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurtsy/pseuds/Neurtsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world's too big sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pressed Flowers and Storm Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/neurtsy  
>  
> 
> for Stephanie, who puts up with my oddness on her dash.

He’s usually louder. All mouth, smile and laugh, and honey shaped like words. But today he’s quiet. A little pale, maybe. Louis thinks that might be the weather, all drawn up and holding a chill in the air. But maybe it’s just the absence of the smile he’s so used to seeing, the light in his eyes. 

The sun’s hiding, either way. 

 

Louis opens the door to find him like that, a little grey, a little worn. Louis says hello, and the way his name feels on his lips feels that way too. A smoke-grey, faded _hello, Harry._

Harry doesn’t speak, not with words, but he steps forward and Louis lets himself be embraced. 

 

The street is still for a breath or two, while Louis hears the _hello,_ and _I need this,_ and of course _I love you._ It’s a message shared between heartbeats, steady and kept inside, for no one else but them. 

 

Louis eases him through the door and shuts out the world with a hushed _click_ and a closed latch. He wraps Harry in a blanket and Harry wraps him in his arms. Softly they sway, while Louis doesn’t ask and Harry doesn’t say.

 

It isn’t enough they decide, the one blanket, and they pull the sheets from Louis’ bed, the throw pillows, the couch cushions. Kitchen chairs make a fuss against the linoleum as they’re dragged, propped together back-to-back, keeping watch. 

 

They build a nest together, a little home to house their thoughts. Made of gentle stitches and cotton stuffing, soft comforts with no weight or stones or sticks to break bones. 

 

It’s warm inside their makeshift walls, safe and secret, a womb away from the world and Louis fancies that they’re twins in here, made up of the same lungs and hearts and tangled fingers. 

 

Their clothes are lost without fuss, woven into the walls in loosely tied knots, or draped together to hang like curtains for windows that aren’t there. It’s private to keep their love inside, Louis thinks, and Harry’s arms around his waist seem to agree. 

 

Harry’s lips part open for the first time, not for words but for Louis’ lips. And after, they part again for his own fingers, wetting them to trace down Louis’ body and ease inside.

Harry’s head comes to rest on Louis’ chest, skull soft and filled with small worries. Louis lets the troubles stir and roll like storm clouds, and like storm clouds, soon they pass. 

 

Lower, Harry’s fingers barely move. He’s still, and silent, and Louis’ body lets him be, holds him close and breathes in gentle shudders just for him. 

 

It’s a strange sort of love they make, entangled on the floor. 

Neither could have made it any differently, and neither would have asked to.

 

Somewhere in the moments between breaths it stops being worn and grey, and the mood yellows like old photographs. 

The air around them warms to mauve and lilac and lavender. _Tickle me pink,_ Louis says, and Harry does, his fingers damp against his sides, making Louis wonder, not with distaste, if the tips have pruned. 

 

Between their bodies, when they settle, Louis finds they’re wet and sticking, and as their hearts calm, Harry’s words come, slow and sweet, and honey shaped.

They weave Louis stories, low and soft, of how surely they’ve become tissue paper cutouts of themselves, pressed fast together and secured with glue. 

_That hot glue, melted from wax sticks?_ Louis asks, and Harry nods, solemn and pink, and holding him tight.

 _For those forever sorts of things,_ he says. 

 

Louis tries to place the time of his release as Harry presses sleep-soon words into his shoulder, tales of flowers pressed between parchment pages, to live and die and bloom forever, tiny gardens kept in books for winter evenings.

 

He can’t do it, pinpoint the moment, and when he asks, Harry’s eyes go green and startled, gently baffled as he doesn’t have an answer either, and Louis’ laugh is songbirds after sun showers. 

 

 _It doesn’t matter,_ Louis says, and draws him close again. _But you were surely first._

Harry huffs and holds him, his fingers disagreeing, tracing hearts to Louis’ skin. 

 

They decide, in the end, it must have been in the same breath, with their heartbeats so aligned.


End file.
